


On This Night of a Thousand Stars

by bananasandroses (achuislemochroi)



Series: Whofic [90]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: 2X11 (Fear Her), F/M, Season/Series 04, Tenth Doctor Era, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-09
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-12-25 19:00:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12042216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/achuislemochroi/pseuds/bananasandroses
Summary: This is a night for lost things being found.





	On This Night of a Thousand Stars

When you thought up this plan, you thought it’d be just like every other time you’ve been here since she’d gone. Land the TARDIS, find Rose, watch her for a little while ( _without_ messing up the timeline), get back into the TARDIS, and disappear until the need to see her again couldn’t be assuaged in any other way.

It doesn’t turn out that way. But then again, when was the last time anything you’ve been involved with ever went to plan?

You achieve the first two steps easily enough and are skulking around trying to keep to where she wouldn’t see you but, at the same time, so desperate to fill your senses with her you couldn’t let her out of your sight. The whole experience of dealing with the Ood again had spooked you, and triggered memories of her to break free from the part of your mind in which you’d locked them, because you couldn’t bear to remember, and overcome you. Memories of the Sanctuary Base, of the crew members you’d been able to save (and of those you hadn’t). Of the Beast.

_‘And the lost girl, so far away from home. The valiant child who will die in battle so very soon.’_

You remember telling her the Beast had lied, that she wouldn’t die. That you wouldn’t _let_ her. And it was a promise you’d kept, even though it cost a part of your soul. She’d survived Canary Wharf. The cost, that you’d never see her again, was very nearly worth it.

You let yourself get so caught up in memories you forget to keep an eye out for potential trouble, and it’s not until you hear your name that you finally wake to the potential danger.

‘Doctor?’

_Oh, shit._

You’ve been seen. And while part of your consciousness is screaming about paradoxes and Reapers and the end of all things, the rest of it – not to mention what feels like every nerve ending in your entire body – is singing in unadulterated joy at being this close to her. It’s been so long since you’ve talked to her (longer still since you’ve been able to hold her). So very, _very_ long. You’re tired beyond measure of resisting the temptation.

So, summoning up as much nonchalance as possible – so she won’t realise you aren’t _her_ Doctor (or, to be pedantic, not her Doctor from this time period) – you smile at her with a thoroughly genuine smile, one you think may be the first to reach your eyes in quite some time, before drawing her into a hug. You thank your lucky stars that you hugged each other for little if any reason by this stage, and instead of planning how you’re going to avoid Reapers you’re fighting a battle with yourself about whether to disappear with Rose and leave the universe to its own devices. You’re trying, very hard, to care about the likelihood of Reapers. And you’re failing miserably. All the time, you’re revelling in the feeling of Rose’s body flush against yours for the first time in you can’t remember how long.

It’s Rose who breaks the hug, and Rose who pulls away from you and starts babbling about the Isolus and Chloë Webber and the Olympics. It’s Rose who encourages you to find the solution to the problem, saying she knows you can, that she believes in you. Rose obviously thinks you’re the Doctor who was travelling with her.

_Thank Chaos I wore the brown suit this time out._ You know there would have been no way of explaining things, if you’d been wearing the blue one, without revealing you weren’t who she thought you were. Or were, but weren’t. Just thinking about it gives you a headache.

She turns to walk away from you, and you struggle to remember where your other self is at that moment; the last thing you need right now is to run into _him_. As you watch her moving away, you notice her hair looks different to how you remember it – loose (you could have sworn she was wearing it in one of those pigtail things she was so fond of), and a more golden colour.

_What the hell?_

Your mind working overtime tells you this is, to say the least of it, highly unlikely. Something’s up.

‘Rose? _Rose!_ ’

You call after her, but she doesn’t seem to hear you; always quick on your feet you start running after her, only to see her disappear right in front of you.

_That’s not right, that didn’t happen. What in the name of Chaos is going on?_ You’re beginning to think the impossible has actually happened, and you’ve a nasty feeling that while you’d been trying to preserve the timeline, so had _she_. You’d thought it was impossible, had told her so that last time you’d seen her. It _should_ have been impossible.

You’d told her that night it was a night ‘for lost things being found’. But it’s _impossible_. You haven’t found her again, only to lose her without even knowing it.

Have you?


End file.
